United States: More people are getting immunized with whooping cough at the highest rate in years as student across America head back to school, according to the US health officials.
Statistics released by the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that overall 291 were reported in the week ending September 14. New York reported the highest number of cases in the given period indicating 44 cases. Oklahoma ranked second with 40 cases, Ohio has identified 39 cases of illness and Pennsylvania has identified 38 cases of infection.
As reported by HealthDay, such high numbers have not been reported since 2015 where the United States was recovering from the strident of whooping cough cases of year 2014 as seen in the data above.
According to the CDC, 14 569 cases were recorded up to this time of the year which is higher than four times the number of infections that was reported during the same period last year.
They have been warning for months about a new wave of breakthrough infections in older children and adults, while unvaccinated young children and newborns of unvaccinated mothers are the most susceptible to both infection and serious disease, CBS News reports.
What causes the death rate to be so high and why are there so many breakthrough infections?
Whooping cough cases remain on the rise in the past few decades after the United States moved to pertussis vaccines that are less effective but cause fewer side effects than the old-school shots, CBS News found.
Health officials have stressed that high school students in particular have sustained that rate in one of the United States’ largest pertussis outbreaks this year in Pennsylvania.
“In the past, pertussis used to be perceived more of a childhood disease; however, there has been growing concern of cases and hospitalizations among older adults,” the Pennsylvania Department of Health noted in a health alert. “This is probably due to severing of vaccine-induced immunity and inadequate identification and sampling by adult care givers as a result of which, more severe infections, co-infection, and hospital admissions in elderly patients are realized.”
A very similar scenario has unfolded in the New York where 40 percent of the cases which are outside of the New York City have been in teens and ages 15 to 19 said the CBS News.
The resurgence arrives as the US food and Drug Administration is weighing speeding up the development of more than effective pertussis shots and FDA advisory panel plans to meet the Friday discuss the potential pertussis booster vaccine trials for the teens.
The CDC already recommends a number of the pertussis shots for the children and adults which also includes the boosters of the Tdap vaccine-which contains antigens which are designed to protect against the pertussis for the all the adults every 10 years.
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